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For Humanity to make space exploration missions possible within a single natural lifetime, Humans had to make themselves capable of traveling faster than warp 1, the speed of light. After Zefram Cochrane made a successful warp test flight in the Phoenix in 2063, the propulsion system he created was further developed. In 2119, several engineers, such as Henry Archer and Cochrane himself, began the work that paved the way directly to Enterprise, at the Warp Five Complex in Bozeman, Montana. Over the next thirty-two years, warp engine development continued until Humanity's first warp 5 engine was created. This engine was capable of speeds that finally made interstellar travel in more survivable periods possible – that is, in days, weeks or months, instead of years. As a result, humanity was able to construct its first warp 5 capable starship, Enterprise, completed in 2151. At launch, Enterprise had a theoretical maximum speed of warp 4.5.

The historical significance of Enterprise was related in a drawing of the ship that hung in Archer's ready room; the image was part of a series of paintings, depicting the historical lineage of ships called Enterprise. (ENT: "Broken Bow")

The print of Enterprise, as well as the other paintings in this series, were made by John Eaves, who, due an oversight on his part, had only 24 hours to produce the drawings. [1] For information on the other illustrations, see Captain's ready room.

In March of 2152, the ship's mission was canceled when one of its shuttlepods appeared to have ignited the tetrazinegas within the atmosphere of Paraagan II, killing 3,600 innocent colonists. It was this event, along with its actions at other planets including P'Jem and Tandar Prime, that caused the Starfleet Command Council to recall Enterprise to Earth. Ambassador Soval recommended that United Earth wait another ten to twenty years before trying another deep space exploration mission. Archer was able to convince the Starfleet Command Council and the Vulcan High Command to allow Enterprise to continue, particularly when it was revealed that the accident had been triggered by the Suliban Cabal. (ENT: "Shockwave", "Shockwave, Part II")

The search for the Xindi was long and perilous, taking almost a year. Enterprise was in danger much of the time in the Expanse, due to the presence of spatial anomalies generated by the spheres. (ENT: "Anomaly") It was discovered that insulating the hull with trellium-D could protect the ship from the anomalies, but unfortunately, trellium was hazardous to Vulcan neural pathways, and Captain Archer refused to let Subcommander T'Pol leave the ship. Hence, the shielding could not be used. (ENT: "Impulse")

Eventually, T'Pol discovered a way to determine or predict the spatial anomalies as well as the locations of the spheres. During an exploration to verify T'Pol's theory, decks B, C, and E were breached and decompressed. (ENT: "Exile") Enterprise then spent around two weeks in a polaric field, in which the ship was covered with highly-charged and magneticnucleonic particles, primarily ferricions, that formed a strong particulate which generated a power-dampening dia-magnetic field capable of shutting down all shipboard systems, including life support. The crew eventually was able to use the ship's shuttlepods to tow it out of the field, and the nucleonic particles detached from the hull once Enterprise was clear. (ENT: "Similitude") Afterwards, Enterprise was hijacked by Triannon fanatics with organic explosives implanted in their bodies. During the event, part of the ship's hull was damaged and one crewman died. (ENT: "Chosen Realm")

In February of 2154, Enterprise determined the location of the Xindi weapon and arrived in the Azati Prime system. (ENT: "Azati Prime") There, the ship suffered severe damage, due to attacks by multiple Xindi ships. The ship's primary warp coil was destroyed, damage that required Captain Archer to eventually attack an Illyrian ship. That ship had a warp coil that Enterprise's crew could use, which would let them arrive on time to a meeting with Degra. (ENT: "Damage") Enterprise might have endured even more damage in the Delphic Expanse, if not for the intervention of an alternate future version of Enterprise, which had traveled 117 years into the past when attempting to use a subspace corridor. (ENT: "E²")

Enterprise damaged in the Delphic Expanse

Enterprise accomplished its mission to destroy the Xindi weapon successfully, though Captain Archer was presumed dead in the explosion. The ship was returned to Earth by a Xindi-Aquatic cruiser following the end of the mission, though Enterprise made a slight detour to an alternate version of 1944 with the help of temporal agentDaniels. During this mission, Archer rejoined the ship after stopping Vosk's attempt to return to his own time, and subsequently bringing an end to the Temporal Cold War that had, for so long, plagued Enterprise's mission. (ENT: "Zero Hour", "Storm Front", "Storm Front, Part II")

Twenty-seven Enterprise crew members died during the search for the Xindi weapon. (ENT: "Home")

The members of Enterprise's crew were hailed as heroes upon returning to Earth, especially Captain Archer, for whom several schools were named. Enterprise was placed into drydock, where it began an extensive repair and refit. Modifications to the ship included a new captain's chair, an upgrade to the transporter, and repainted door panels. (ENT: "Home")

In May of 2154, a group of rogue Augments, left over from the Eugenics Wars, stole a Klingon Bird-of-Prey and killed its entire crew. The Klingon Empire threatened United Earth with war, unless the Augments were apprehended. After a debriefing and refit, Enterprise was relaunched with Arik Soong on board to try to hunt down the Augments on the border of the Orion Syndicate. After several brief firefights with Orion interceptors, the Augments found Enterprise, took Soong aboard their ship, and set course to Cold Station 12. Enterprise pursued but failed to stop Soong from taking thousands of unborn Augment embryos. Soong then headed to the Briar Patch; however, the Augments turned on him, and headed to a Klingon colony to attempt the release of several types of pathogens into the atmosphere. Enterprise arrived in time to stop the Augments, destroying them and their Bird-of-Prey. (ENT: "Borderland", "Cold Station 12", "The Augments")

When the United Earth Embassy on Vulcan was bombed, Enterprise was ordered to the Vulcan system to investigate. The Vulcan High Command postulated that the Syrrannites had been behind the bombing. The crew discovered a bomb still in the wreckage of the embassy and confirmed that DNA of a well-known Syrrannite, T'Pau, was on the bomb, but this was later discovered to be faked. Archer and T'Pol went on a quest to find T'Pau in The Forge, leaving Enterprise in command of Commander Tucker. After challenging V'Las' evidence on the bombing, Ambassador Soval was thrown out of the High Command and decided to stay aboard the ship with the Humans. Enterprise was eventually ordered to leave the system, and refused to do so with its captain still on the planet, causing a skirmish with the Vulcans. Soval informed Acting Captain Tucker that the Vulcan High Command was preparing to attack Andoria. Enterprise traveled to a nearby nebula where they warned the Andorians, and then assisted them when the two fleets engaged each other. The Vulcan High Command called off the attack after only a short time, due to political changes – back on their homeworld – that caused the High Command to withdraw. The discovery of the ancient texts of Surak caused the dismissal of the High Command, and Starfleet activity was no longer to be regulated by the Vulcans. (ENT: "The Forge", "Awakening", "Kir'Shara")

Some time after the Vulcan Reformation, Emory Erickson performed a major overhaul of the transporter in an experiment on Enterprise, boosting the transporter range to more than 40,000 kilometers. The upgrade replaced the old transporter control pedestal with a much more advanced control system. The upgrade turned out to be part of a ruse to try to get back his son, who had been lost in a transporter accident, many years before. (ENT: "Daedalus")

Later in 2154, Commander Tucker and Ensign Hoshi Sato were infected with a silicon-based virus whilst on an away mission. The virus was used by the Organians to test races, then, if passing, make first contact with them. As a result, a part of Enterprise had to be sealed off in quarantine. (ENT: "Observer Effect")

In November of 2154, Enterprise carried a Tellarite delegation, including Ambassador Gral, to Babel. On the way there, the starship received a distress call from the Andorian warshipKumari. The warship had been attacked by an unknown ship, although Andorian CommanderShran blamed the Tellarites for the destruction of his vessel. Eventually, the crew of Enterprise learned that the Kumari had been attacked by a prototypeRomulan drone-ship which was able to holographically disguise itself as other vessels. Gral and Shran eventually managed to work out their differences, and Enterprise rendezvoused with a Tellarite transport ship which returned Gral and his delegation to Tellar Prime. Enterprise continued to Andor, where Captain Archer and Commander Shran encountered the Aenar, a blind race of telepaths. A member of the Aenar, Jhamel, returned to Enterprise with Archer and Shran, and assisted in the destruction of the drone-ships which the Romulans had launched from their home system. Again, the starship journeyed to Andor, where Shran and Jhamel left the ship. (ENT: "Babel One", "United", "The Aenar")

Enterprise returned to Earth on November 27, 2154. While there, Chief Engineer Charles Tucker transferred to the new NX-02, Columbia. On Earth, DoctorPhlox was assaulted and captured by Rigelians. Enterprise followed the warp trail of a Rigelian freighter which had left Earth, two hours after Phlox's abduction. When the starship arrived at the freighter's coordinates, the Rigelian craft had been seriously damaged and only wreckage remained. As Enterprise's crew attempted to determine the identity of the freighter's destroyer, a Klingon vessel attacked the starship. An away team from the Klingon craft beamed aboard and sabotagedEnterprise's systems. Although the Klingons returned to their ship, Enterprise was unable to follow, due to the sabotage. (ENT: "Affliction") In the end, Enterprise was repaired thanks to a risky maneuver on the part of Columbia, when Tucker was sent back to his old ship via a grappler wire extended between the two ships while at warp. Columbia and Enterprise then took on the mission of rescuing Phlox together. The crews were able to also save the Klingon species, with the help of Phlox, from a mutated version of a virus combined with Augment DNA. The infected Klingons were left with flat foreheads like Humans, without cranial ridges, a state from which it took almost a century for them to recover. (ENT: "Divergence")

A few days after this Klingon mission, an Orion man named Harrad-Sar came to present an offer to Archer; he would allow Starfleet use of a planet he had discovered, rich in magnesite. Starfleet would do the mining, and he would get ten percent of the shares. To seal the deal, three Orion slave girls were given, as a gift, to Captain Archer. The girls were able to seduce the crew by controlling the men, and disable the women. Tucker and T'Pol, the only two unaffected, were able to foil their plans. Harrad-Sar came to drag Enterprise back to the Orion Syndicate, because they wanted Archer's head, whether or not it was attached to his body. The crew of Enterprise stopped him by sending a shock through the deflector and disabling his ship. (ENT: "Bound")

Enterprise was also present when Earth's leadership announced new trade relations with Vulcan, Andor, Tellar, and Coridan, in January 2155. The members of Enterprise's crew were hailed as heroes laying the ground work for that alliance, a precursor to the formation of the United Federation of Planets. During this conference, the crew was instrumental in thwarting the militant Terra Prime organization, preventing efforts to eject all non-Humans after Terra Prime hijacked the Marsverteron array. (ENT: "Terra Prime")

In 2154, the crew of Enterprise learned the weapon was being built at Azati Prime. But as they drew close, the ship was attacked by two Xindi-Reptilian vessels. The ship suffered substantial damage: thirteen crew members died, including Travis Mayweather, and twenty-three were injured. In addition, the starboardnacelle was out of commission, limiting the ship to warp 1.7. By the time Enterprise reached Azati Prime at that speed, the weapon had been launched. Enterprise managed to follow it back to Earth through a subspace vortex, but the crew's efforts were in vain and Earth was destroyed.

In 2155, Enterprise led one of several convoys of survivors to Ceti Alpha V, where Humanity hoped to resettle, to escape the wrath of the Xindi. When the ship arrived there in 2156, T'Pol turned command over to Commander Tucker; the ship's new responsibility was to patrol the Ceti Alpha system. The ship was upgraded with shields provided by General Shran of the Andorian Imperial Guard.

The bridge explodes, shortly before Enterprise does

In 2165, Enterprise was attacked by Xindi forces that had finally located Ceti Alpha, just as Archer and T'Pol had returned to the ship to attempt a treatment that would cure Archer. During the treatment, it was discovered that destruction of the parasites in the present erased them in the past; curing Archer of the parasites would change history, so that he was never infected. In a desperate bid to change the timeline and save Earth, Archer and T'Pol vaporized the ship in a subspace implosion, thus preventing the parasites in Archer's brain from ever having infected him, creating a new timeline. (ENT: "Twilight")

In a different alternate timeline, the ship's trip through a subspace corridor from the Kovaalan nebula to the Xindi Council planet in February 2154 would have sent it to the year 2037. The particle wake from a damaged impulse manifold caused the corridor to shift in time. Unable to return to the present, and at pains to prevent damaging the timeline by visiting Earth, Captain Archer decided to wait in the Delphic Expanse until the ship could stop the Xindi destroyer/probe from attacking Earth.

To survive for all that time, Enterprise forged alliances with other species, trading its advanced technology for food and supplies. The ship even acquired alien crew members, such as Archer's wife, Esilia; his great-granddaughter remained a member of the crew. With time, the ship acquired advances from other races as well. By 2154, its atmosphere processors had been doubled in efficiency, it acquired an isomagnetic collector from the Ikaarans, and it had a tractor beam installed. In addition, Haradin traders provided the technology to upgrade the plasma injectors and allow the ship to reach warp 6.9 for a brief time, but the ship's injectors were too old to take the stress, and so they couldn't use the technology. The ship had been repeatedly detected by Xindi tracking stations, but the readings were never confirmed.

By 2153, all of the original crew had died except for T'Pol, now more in touch with her emotions than she had been in the past. Lorian was in command of the ship, Karyn Archer was executive officer and pilot, and Greer was tactical officer. Enterprise's crew tried to stop the Xindi probe from being launched at Earth, but Lorian gave the order to ram it too late, and the probe departed. In 2154, Enterprise rendezvoused with the Enterprise of that time period, just before it entered the corridor.

Lorian provided Archer with the Haradin specifications, but the future T'Pol intervened, showing that performing the upgrade was too dangerous. She suggested Enterprise upgrade its impulse manifold to reduce particle wake, but Lorian refused to let Archer carry out the plan; he stole the 2154 ship's injectors to use them himself. The two Enterprises deadlocked in space battle, and Lorian eventually relented, agreeing to follow Archer's plan; Archer's Enterprise made it safely through the corridor. (ENT: "E²")

The fate of Lorian's Enterprise is unknown. It may have been destroyed by the Kovaalans it was fighting at last sight, it may have escaped, or it may have been erased from history by allowing the 2154 Enterprise to make it through the corridor.

Unlike later ships to bear the name, the NX Enterprise is generally referred to as a proper name, without a "the", in the manner that one refers to James T. Kirk's ship, theUSS Enterprise.

Star Trek: Enterprise co-creator Rick Berman originally imagined the series as following the construction of a ship on Earth, an idea that fellow series co-creator Brannon Braga also wanted to see actualized. They were interested in making either all or most of the series' first season focus on the building of the vessel – which was conceived as Earth's first warp 5 capable starship – and for the ship's development to be controversial among the Humans who were on Earth. The ship would have been depicted as launching after its construction was completed. Because executives at Paramount favored a more conventional setting for the new Star Trek series, however, the starship's launch was in the pilot episode "Broken Bow". ("To Boldly Go: Launching Enterprise, Part I: Countdown", ENT Season 1 Blu-ray special features)

Among Rick Berman's initial thoughts for the series that became Enterprise was that he wanted the new series to be set on a spaceship that was heading out rather than making a return journey home, in order to differentiate the craft from the likes of Deep Space 9 and the USS Voyager. The fact that the ship was planned to be the focus of a weekly series, which viewers would hopefully watch each week, meant that the design of its bridge was purposefully made to look comfortable and less claustrophobic than a submarine interior. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 134, pp. 12 & 76) Production Designer Herman Zimmerman contemplated the importance of the vessel's lineage while orchestrating the ship's design. He subsequently mused, "In the case of Star Trek, it's a special kind of vehicle – no pun intended – for storytelling because it has such a rich history." (Broken Bow, paperback ed., p. 261)

Enterprise was the first "hero" ship in a Star Trek series for which the development of its design was aided by CGI. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 136, p. 34) The fact that the ship was planned to be portrayed on-screen over the course of seven years was not on CGI illustrator Doug Drexler's mind, though, as he set to work on creating a preliminary approval CGI model of the vessel, which he originally assumed would serve merely as a quick mock-up. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, p. 26)

In the proceedings before Enterprise's initial airing, this ship was repeatedly referred to as the SS Enterprise. (Broken Bow, paperback ed., p. 260; Star Trek: Communicator issue 134, p. 76) The UPN press kit promoting the series included a blurred photograph that seemed to be of a door or a corridor aboard the ship, which stirred up online fan speculation about what the image showed. Rick Berman later responded, "That's actually funny. We had no art which was approved at that point and that was an out-of-focus picture that was actually taken on one of our sets." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 134, p. 15) The prototype CG model of the ship garnered promotion for the vessel, prior to the launch of the series. "It appeared very early on in print before the high resolution model was ready," offered Doug Drexler. [X]wbm The vessel's early publicity also included Archer actor Scott Bakula giving Entertainment Tonight a tour of the Enterprise sets. (Cinefantastique, Vol. 33, No. 5, p. 19)

Although both Herman Zimmerman and Doug Drexler favored a slightly bronze tint for Enterprise's hull, this coloration was altered after they sent the approval CG model of the craft to Foundation Imaging, to be refined into the high resolution version of the ship, for production. Regarding the alteration in color, Drexler later conceded, "I don’t know where that change originated." [X]wbm

At the time the high-resolution model was created, Enterprise was technically the most photo-realistic ship ever built for Star Trek. Fully meaning for that eventual model to be shown over the projected seven-year series run, Foundation Imaging attempted to make it as detailed as they possibly could. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, pp. 25 & 26)

No practical studio models of Enterprise were ever made for the series; it was the first Star Trek main ship to be depicted without the creation of a practical model. However, Doug Drexler did create a paper miniature of the vessel, a study model for Foundation Imaging to view what the ship would probably look like from certain angles. (Star Trek Monthly issue 86, pp. 21 & 22)

Doug Drexler had a concept for the development of Enterprise that was never used on the show. "My idea was that at the end of the fourth season, the ship would put into drydock for a major refit," he explained. "After four years, out there, dealing with unknowns, it would be time to upgrade the ship based on everything they had learned." [X]wbm

The Artisan prop and model shop of Quantum Mechanix, QMx FX Cinema Arts, was asked to illustrate the history of space flight with models for Star Trek Into Darkness. They constructed fourteen models in total, which included the NX-class Enterprise. On their website, there was a picture of the ship. [16]

In novels set after the events of the Terra Prime crisis – during which it is revealed that Tucker's death was faked and future records altered so that he could investigate Romulan activity – Enterprise is involved in several major battles during the Earth-Romulan War up until the climactic Battle of Cheron in 2160, during which she was crippled by the Romulan flagship, sustaining such serious damage that she had to be decommissioned. (To Brave the Storm; A Choice of Futures) She is subsequently acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its orbital annex, being meticulously restored with many interior surfaces covered in plastic to protect them from contact by visiting tourists. (A Choice of Futures)

Enterprise is featured in the first few levels of the Star Trek: Encounters video game. Its levels are based off of the third season of Enterprise, and involve the search for and destruction of the Xindi weapon, as well as defeating the plans of the Sphere Builders. In addition, Enterprise appears in the game's last level, when a temporal anomaly appears near Earth. When the anomaly causes the USS Enterprise-E to vanish, Enterprise is left alone to battle a fleet of Dominion warships. In the end, Enterprise NX-01 joins forces with the USS Enterprise-A, Enterprise-E, the USS Defiant, and USS Voyager to defeat a combined Xindi, Klingon, Romulan, Dominion, and Borg fleet.